Signify we purest love. Youth like lightning disappears, Leave the dwelling with six doors, And the serpent with nine heads; If thou honourest the soul. Haste into the other life; All is nought save God alone. Oceans are the blood of princes; Desert sands the dust of beauties. More than one Darius was there Who the whole world overcame ; But since these gave up the ghost, Thinkest thou they never were? Boy, go from me to the Shah, Say to him; Shah crowned as Jam, Win thou first the poor man's heart, Then the glass; so know the world. Empty sorrows from the earth Verse as beautiful as pearls. 'More kingdoms wait thy diadem, 'Than are known to thee by name; 'May the sovran destiny 'Grant a victory every morn!' FROM THE PERSIAN OF HAFIZ. OF Paradise, O hermit wise, Let us renounce the thought. Of old therein our names of sin Allah recorded not. Who dear to God on earthly sod No corn-grain plants, The same is glad that life is had, Though corn he wants. Thy mind the mosque and cool kiosk, Spare fast, and orisons; Mine me allows the drinking-house, And sweet chase of the nuns. O just fakeer, with brow austere, Forbid me not the vine; On the first day, poor Hafiz clay Was kneaded up with wine. He is no dervise, Heaven slights his service, Who shall refuse There in the banquet, to pawn his blanket For Schiraz's juice. Who his friend's shirt, or hem of his shirt, Shall spare to pledge, To him Eden's bliss and Angel's kiss Shall want their edge. Up, Hafiz; grace from high God's face Beams on thee pure; Shy then not hell, and trust thou well, XENOPHANES. By fate, not option, frugal nature gave One scent to hyson and to wallflower, One sound to pine-groves and to waterfalls, Are of one pattern made; bird, beast, and plant, Song, picture, form, space, thought, and character, Deceive us, seeming to be many things, And are but one. Beheld far off, they part As God and Devil; bring them to the mind, To know the old element explore a new, The specious panorama of a year And universal nature through her vast |